LIMES GLOBAL TRADINGis a one of the leading Exporters of high quality civilian and military metal cans and their accessories. We offer oil, fuel and special explosive cans. Our metal cans hold UN number and TÜV/GS certification which acknowledges product quality and reliability. Many years of experience working in this field has enabled LIMES GLOBAL TRADING to adapt its approach to satisfy the customer by finding the ideal product which suits his needs and requests. Our aim is to supply products that meets your exact requirements and at very competitve prices . Our products have acquired awareness and gratitude of users in civil and military sector not only in Europe but also in Australia, North America, Asia and Africa.

A jerry can is a robust
fuel container made from pressed steel. It was originally designed
in Germany in the 1930s for military use and holds 20 litres
of fuel. The development of the jerry cans were a huge improvement
on earlier designs, which required tools and funnels to use.

The jerry can was invented by the Germans during a secret project
ordered by Hitler. The Germans called it the Wehrmachtskanister. The
Germans had thousands of jerry cans stockpiled by 1939 in
anticipation of war.

In 1939, an American engineer
named Paul Pleiss had built a vehicle to journey to India with his
German colleague. After building the car, they realized they didn't
have any
storage for emergency water. The German engineer had access to the
stockpile of jerry cans at Tempelhof Airport and just managed to
take three jerry cans. They drove across 11 national borders without
incident until Field Marshal Goering sent a plane to take the
engineer home. The German engineer compounded his treason by giving
Pleiss complete specifications for the manufacture of the jerry can.
Pleiss continued on to Calcutta, put his car in storage, and flew
back to Philadelphia.

Pleiss told American military
officials about the jerry cans, but they ignored him. Without a
sample, he realized he couldn't get anywhere. He eventually got the
car shipped to New York by a roundabout method, and sent a jerry can
to Washington. The War Department decided instead to use the WWI
ten-gallon jerry can with two screw closures, which required both a
wrench and funnel for pouring.

The one American jerry can was sent to Camp Holabird, Maryland,
where it was redesigned. It only retained the handles, size
and shape. The weld was replaced with rolled seams, the lining was
removed and it now required a wrench and a funnel. The original
design proved far superior and these fuel containers were
subsequently used in all theatres of war around the world.

At the beginning of the
Second World War, the British Army were equipped with simple
rectangular fuel containers: a 2 gallon (9 litres) container made of
pressed steel and a 4 gallon (18 litres) container made from tin
plate. While the 9 litre - 2 gallon containers were relatively
strong, they were expensive to produce. The 18 litre - 4 gallon
containers, which were mainly manufactured in the third world, were
cheap and plentiful but they were not very robust. Consequently they
were colloquially known as flimsies.

While adequate for
transportation by road in Europe, the flimsies proved to be
extremely unsatisfactory during the Northof
the fuel being lost as the containers were easily punctured. The
resultant leakages also made the transportation vehicles liable to
fuel fires.

When the British Army first saw the German jerry cans during the
invasion of Norway in 1940, the British immediately saw the
advantages of the superior design. The jerry cans had three
handles on them which allowed easy handling by one or two people or
to be moved bucket brigade-style. The handle design also allows for
two empty jerry cans to be carried in each hand.

The sides of the jerry can were
marked with cross-like indentations that strengthened the jerry can while
allowing the contents to expand, as did an air pocket under the handles when
the jerry can was filled correctly. Rather than a screw cap, the containers
used a cam lever release mechanism with a short spout secured with a snap
closure and an air-pipe to the air pocket which enabled smooth pouring
(which was omitted in some copies). The interior of the jerry can was also
lined with an impervious plastic, first developed for steel beer barrels
that would allow the cans to be used for either water or gasoline. The jerry
can was welded, and had a gasket for a leak-proof mouth. The British used
cans captured from the "Jerries" (Germans) — hence "jerry cans" — in
preference to their own containers as much as possible. Later in 1940 Pleiss
was in London, and British officers asked him about the design and
manufacture of the jerry can. Pleiss ordered the second of his three jerry
cans flown to London.